Extract .tar.xz with pv progress bar

Question

I have a problem with extracting files with a progress bar. It always gives me an error:

pv "file.tar.xz" | tar -xf

tar: need argument -- f

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 13 '22 at 16:42

3

this work for me: pv "file.tar.gz" | tar -xzf - -C target_directory

answered Apr 13 '22 at 16:42

Daniel Bentes

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Manfred · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-16T10:29:25.787

2

The -f option requires the archive to operate on as an argument, see man tar(1).
Use - to extract from stdin (provided by the pipe pv "file.tar.xz" | in your case):

pv "file.tar.xz" | tar -xJf-

As - is usually the compiled-in default archive (you can probably check with tar --show-defaults), you might be able to omit the -f option altogether and simply use

pv "file.tar.xz" | tar -xJ

edited Jun 16 '21 at 10:29

answered Jun 16 '21 at 09:23

Manfred

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This work: `pv "file.tar.xz" | tar -xJ` thinks like `-xf-` or `-x` do not work – heavyblack1 Jun 16 '21 at 09:55
Right: When extracting from a pipe, `tar` isn't able to infer the compression program from an archive suffix. I'll edit the answer; thanks! – Manfred Jun 16 '21 at 10:28
I get `xz: (stdin): File format not recognized` with either of these options. – Dustin Wyatt Aug 06 '22 at 20:06

Extract .tar.xz with pv progress bar

2 Answers2